UPDATE: My live-snark of the 69th Annual Golden Globes started at 5 PM tonight based on the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s 2012 nominations. Come for the cynicism. Stay for the subversion. Add your comment. Warning: Not for the easily offended or ridiculously naive.
—The 2012 Golden Globes take place inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel ballroom at a star-studded dinner broadcast live by NBC and emceed for the 3rd time by Hollywood’s enfant terrible Ricky Gervais. Only this host can’t resist openly loathing everyone including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association putting on the show. Perhaps Christian Bale summed it up best when he took the stage last year and called the HFPA “those oddball characters”. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Golden Globes are completely meaningless awards bestowed by a scandal-riddled organization on a network desperate for ratings. (More on this at the end of the post…)

I only hope that Ricky Gervais can live up to his performance last year when he ensured the meanest Golden Globes on record. NBC has been hyping him as “the host we can’t control”. Considering that NBC is in dead last place again among the networks, that’s encouraging. Bring it on, Ricky, even if Hollywood and the HFPA will hate you later. The show is about to start:

Last year Ricky wanted to come out in a Nazi uniform. He chickened out this year, too. “So where was I? Nervous?,” Gervais asked the audience. Then he immediately dissed NBC and the Golden Globes themselves. “The Golden Globes are just like the Oscars — but without all that esteem.”

This is definitely toned-down Gervais. He’s obviously been muzzled or muzzled himself. What a sell-out. Making never-was Kim Kardashian jokes is beyond easy. Same with washed-up Eddie Murphy jokes about Norbit. Ricky is too chicken to go after the bonafide Hollywood stars. Doesn’t lay a glove on Adam Sandler even though the comedian just had a big film bomb. (“Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler played all the parts in The Help.”) And arrogant asshole James Cameron jokes. (“I’ve sat through longer James Cameron acceptance speeches” than Kim Kardashian’s marriage.) Gervais pretends he’s not cowed: “The Hollywood Foreign Press warned me if I cause any controversy whatsoever they’ll invite me back next year. He reads the rules he’s been given: “No profanity, no nudity, not to libel anyone, and I mustn’t mention Mel Gibson this year and especially not Jodie Foster’s Beaver.” With that, Jodie gives the thumbs-up sign.

This is the best Gervais can do to open the show? Incredibly stale stuff. It’s going to be a loooong night…

Gervais asks Johnny Depp if he’s on recreational drugs. “Have you seen The Tourist yet?” Johnny replies, “No”. And I believe him.

“Oh, he’s fun,” Depp mutters about Gervais.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN ASUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURECHRISTOPHER PLUMMER – BEGINNERS

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICALLAURA DERN – ENLIGHTENED

Dern thanks Lucille Ball. Nice warmth.

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISIONDOWNTON ABBEY (MASTERPIECE) – PBS – A Carnival/Masterpiece Co-production

Was there any doubt that Julian Fellowes would take this home to Britain?

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION KATE WINSLET – MILDRED PIERCE

Oh, Kate, please stop memorizing your speeches. They lose all their spontaneity. And not a word about Joan Crawford? Shame on you… Once again, HBO bought a Globe. This mini-series was tepid at best. maudlin at worst. And not Kate’s finest hours to be sure.

Really, I can’t believe how sanitized the opening half-hour of the Golden Globes has been. What happened to all the danger NBC was hyping by having Gervais host again? Real disappointment. Step it up, Ricky, or you’re yesterday’s news.

Jakes Gyllenhaal looks good out of the Witness Protection Program that has become his thwarted career.

“We’re already 5 minutes over. That’s your fault,’ Gervais says to the audience. “Keep your speeches short. Thank God and your agent. I know for a fact that God and my agent have had exactly the same input in my career.” This stuff isn’t even amateur night at the Improv stand-up worthy.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMAKELSEY GRAMMER – BOSS

Kelsey thanks Starz boss Chris Albrecht for his “balls” for ordering the show without pilot or all 8 episodes. I think Kelsey won for his performance pretending to still love his soon-to-be ex-wife Camille on Bravo’s The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.

Well the HFPA morons get at least one award right. Homeland was the best TV I’ve seen in a long, long time. Claire Danes was transformative. Damien Lewis even better than in Band Of Brothers. Mandy Patinkin not annoying like he usually is. Granted, it’s a remake of an Israeli show. But I’d follow 24‘s Howard Gordon anywhere that terrorism takes him.

What was Jimmy Fallon doing. Anybody? ANYBODY? Jimmy, stop trying so hard. At least you didn’t come out with your guitar. Calm down, sit tight, and in a year you’ll get Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show. Whether you deserve it or not. Might think about adjusting your meds, meanwhile.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURELUDOVIC BOURCE – THE ARTIST
This French guy from The Artist is really Bernie Rosenberg from The Bronx. He just doesn’t know it. But Harvey Weinstein does…

You honestly thought the HFPA had Madonna in its audience and wouldn’t give her an award? Oh you naive people. Granted the song is pretty good. But this was bought and paid for by everyone concerned. Meanwhile, could Madonna be more irritating? Between that fake British accent and her fake humility, she’s the reason why Lady Gaga is doing a more real Madonna imitation now.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
IDRIS ELBA – LUTHER

Considering that Tyler Perry stole Elba’s Alex Cross role, this is small comfort indeed for Idris. Really, Tyler, stick to cross-dressing in your movies and holding Oprah’s handbag the rest of the time.

Seth Rogan: “I am currently trying to conceal a massive erection.” Don’t believe it’s because he’s standing next to Kate Beckinsale. It’s because he actually has an audience watching him right now since few people go to his movies anymore.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL MICHELLE WILLIAMS – MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

What a triumphant night for The Weinstein Company. (I just threw up in my mouth a little when I wrote that.) Will there be an Oscar backlash? The ‘Stop Harv’ line starts right outside the DreamWorks office (War Horse) or GK Films headquarters (Hugo). No wonder Scott Rudin is laying low this year.

Hey, if I want to see a boring awards show, I can watch the Oscars. Someone get the real Ricky Gervais onstage — and quick.

Piper Perabo and Sarah Michelle Gellar come out wearing two of the worst dresses I’ve ever seen. One looks like a Mildred Pierce bedspread. And the other looks like Wicked‘s good witch castoff. Trust me: inappropriate ballgowns on young women will never be chic.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TV
PETER DINKLAGE – GAME OF THRONES

Nice touch that even Dinklage’s own mother thought Guy Pearce would win for Mildred Pierce. I think Pearce is among the most underrated actors working today. And he was wasted in that HBO mini-series which gave him hardly anything to do. The film role was so much juicier.

I’m truly embarrassed for Ricky Gervais that he felt the need to blow so much smoke up George Clooney’s ass. It’s as if Ricky is playing a part of a host instead of actually taking control of the podium. Someone must have read him the riot act for him to remain so tame. He’s killing his career right now. If Hollywood’s enfant terrible is meek and mild, no one will care about him anymore. Bye-bye Ricky…

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN – Paramount/Columbia/Hemisphere Capital/Amblin/Wingnut Films/Kennedy/Marshall Production

Steven Spielberg gets his moment solo because Peter Jackson is back in New Zealand making The Hobbit. “I want to thank Brad Grey for his courage,” Spielberg says. Hilarious, considering that Steven et al at DreamWorks did everything they could to get Grey fired when Paramount owned them. Who has the last laugh now? Actually both men. Doing well is the best revenge. Unless Reliance pulls the plug on DreamWorks 2.0.

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
WOODY ALLEN – MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

No Woody. Not even a taped piece from NYC. Long sigh…

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TV
JESSICA LANGE – AMERICAN HORROR STORY

Lange did herself a lot of good by thanking the writers. “And especially Ryan [Murphy] who convinced me to do this.” Um, didn’t Murphy et al decide to kill off most of the cast for Season 2 except Lange? Mean move. [UPDATE: A commenter tells me the plan all along on American Horror Story was for it to focus on a different family/location each year. But I don’t watch the show. Because I make it a practice to never make Ryan Murphy richer than he already is. Have you people seen his Malibu crib? Obscene.]

Last year I wrote that it was the meanest Golden Globes. This year it’s the treacliest. Gervais didn’t even try skewering Madonna. Instead Madonna tried to skewer him. “If I’m still just ‘Like A Virgin’, Ricky, then why don’t you come over here and do something about it. I haven’t kissed a girl in a few years. On TV.” Can I please turn off this crapfest now? Ricky, you’re a sell-out!

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
MATT LEBLANC – EPISODES

What a Showtime near-sweep if anybody took these awards seriously. I wish LeBlanc had had the gonads to thank NBC for not entirely killing off his career with Joey.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
OCTAVIA SPENCER – THE HELP

The movie may have been annoying with that lame theme of black women triumphing with help from whites. But when it gives these movie awards more diversity, and honors such a deserving actress, then who isn’t on board with this win? But I still found the pic and its marketing incredibly offensive. My live-snarking, my website, so deal with it.

I keep having this nagging feeling that I’ve missed an award tonight. Or maybe it’s just that I’m missing an awards show that used to spin out of control. This Golden Globes is in a straitjacket. I want these hours of my life back. I didn’t sign up to live-snark a ‘nice’ show.

Morgan Freeman getting honored? The HFPA might as well show a sign that says “Bathroom Break” on a black screen…

Freeman to Red co-star Helen Mirren who intro-ed him: “Watching you handle a gun makes me know I never want to piss you off.”

OK, now if Robert Downey Jr isn’t funny, then the fix is in. Oh yes, it’s in.

Gervais has disappeared into the backdrop of this show both visually and viscerally.

Angelina Jolie, to quote the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love, looks photoshopped. Yowza! Steven Huvaune should stop making up lists with Jennifer Aniston as the Sexiest Woman of the Decade or whatever. It’s just embarrassing next to this goddess.

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
MARTIN SCORSESE – HUGO

The biggest non-surprise of the night. Not that Scorsese doesn’t deserve it. But he’s intimately involved in digital restoration funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and others. But Hugo still hasn’t a prayer of making money with that $200+M budget because so far it’s a stiff at the box office everywhere.

Oh now I get it, this year is Hollywood’s turn to rag on Ricky who’s been deliberately de-fanged. (Wish I knew what Antonio Banderas said… Anyone translating it?)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL MODERN FAMILY – ABC – Levitan-Lloyd Productions in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television

Loved the shtick which had Steve Levitan translating for what’s-her-name and telling every actress to go sleep with Hollywood writers “who are so funny and so sexy. Film actresses, do yourselves a favor at the parties tonight and give them your phone numbers. They may look pasty and nervous and out-of-shape but they’re the greatest lovers I’ve ever had. Seriously.” Not only is Steve Levitan gorgeous, but he’s also the only genuinely funny guy 24/7 in Hollywood. (As Brad Grey when he was a manager once said about his client Levitan: “He’s the only Jewish guy I know who’s a 40 tall.”)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
JEAN DUJARDIN – THE ARTIST

Harvey is taking out a hit on Dujardin as we speak because he failed to mention The Weinstein Co. To think Warner Bros partly funded The Artist and now doesn’t reap the rewards because it decided not to distribute. Can anyone stop Weinstein from near-sweeping the Oscars, too?

Why is Ricky boasting about having a job where he’s “getting drunk and saying what he wants — and they still pay you”? Not tonight. I’d take back his emcee fee if it were up to me. Gervais makes a feeble attempt to target “the evil Colin Firth” because he’s racist and punches kids. Firth gets off one at Gervais’ expense instead. That must be what all the stars were promised this time around: ‘You can use Ricky this time as your punching bag’, and NBC guaranteed it won’t be the other way around.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA MERYL STREEP – THE IRON LADY

Seriously? Another win for The Weinstein Co? What did Harvey do: get every member of the HFPA green cards and/or permanent U.S. citizenship? (Well, he is a bundler for the Democratic party/Obama re-election campaign.) This is a movie that many Britons hated (not unlike Madonna’s W.E.) Shouldn’t that make it an anathema to the foreign press? Nope. “I want to thank everybody in England who let me trample all over their history,” Streep said.

Meryl wasn’t just joking when she thanked “my agent Kavein Huvane and God — Harvey Weinstein. The Punisher. Old Testament, I guess.” Harvey tried to act humble. Still, it’s an astonishing night for him. Two years ago he was down and out. Now he’s The Don again. The fact is he’s just so much better than other moguls at seducing these awards voters and swanning the clueless media.

Uggie onstage steals the show. But here’s the best reason I know not to give as many Oscars to The Artist as the HFPA did tonight: that effin’ music is going to get incredibly annoying as it plays over and over on Academy Awards night. Now Harv is called The Boss.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
GEORGE CLOONEY – THE DESCENDANTS

You didn’t think the HFPA would have George Clooney in its audience tonight and fail to give him an award? That’s how the Golden Globes work. TOLDJA! George Clooney praises Brad Pitt’s work onscreen and off-screen just so NBC can get another shot of Brangelina for the folks back home… But there’s no doubt that the Best Actor Oscar category will be the hardest to win this year what with George, Brad, Leo, Michael, Ryan, vying among many more.

CAA’s Bryan Lourd gets a primetime shoutout. This win is a surprise. Fox Searchlight must be rejoicing given the stiff competition. It’s certainly one of the few specialty films from 2011 that has made real money. (By contrast, The Artist is still hunting for coin.) I also think it puts Alexander Payne in a prime position to win Best Director Oscar — finally — because Scorsese won’t win again. Of that I’m sure.

Mercifully, the show is ending. My final verdict? Gervais didn’t kill at the Golden Globes. He was killed by it. He went from supervillain to super-eunuch in the space of one year. Tonight Hollywood got its revenge by ruining his career…
—
Here’s why I hate the Golden Globes: Studios and networks who lavishly lobby the HFPA almost always score nominations. Stars win in direct correlation to their glamour quotient. Everything about the awards is geared towards hyping the media’s interest and the telecast’s ratings. Journalists like myself for years have been attacking the HFPA for its exclusionary membership policies. The small motley group of 85 mostly freelancers who belong to the HFPA won’t allow in the real foreign journalists at the prestige media outlets across the world. The HFPA clique doesn’t want to dilute the financial bonanza they receive from the studios and networks who arrange exclusive interviews about each year’s movies and TV shows. Oscar-winning documentary director (Vikram Jayanti, in his 2004 film The Golden Globes: Hollywood’s Dirty Little Secret) has called the group a bunch of “freeloaders” who know more about hors d’oeuvres than auteurs and select winners based on “who kisses butt best”. The HFPA has been accused in a lawsuit by its former publicist of accepting “payola” and other questionable business practices. Even though the charges are denied by the HFPA, the lawsuit alleges what we’ve all known: that the Golden Globes and the organization behind it have zero integrity. The Federal Communications Commission one year even accused the HFPA of misleading the public as to how the winners were determined.

The organizations who put on the Golden Globes — NBC and Dick Clark Productions — could clean up the HFPA but choose not to. That’s because everybody is making gobs of money, including the HFPA, which pockets an estimated $30 million in broadcast fees for the awards show. Instead, the entire entertainment industry props up this pathetic broadcast, which is seen as a night-long marketing movie and TV tool. Only once in the last seven years has the winner of one of the Golden Globe best film prizes gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars (2008′s Slumdog Millionaire). So I refuse to treat these awards with any seriousness. And if you don’t want that, then for crissakes stop reading me…

The only reason I can think of to tune in to the Golden Globes is for the bad behavior. Over the years, Jack Nicholson has mooned the audience, Jim Carrey has talked out of his butt, Christine Lahti was locked in the bathroom, and other unscripted weirdness occurs at this intimate dinner. Including 1982′s low point when Pia Zadora’s husband bought her best “New Star Of The Year”.

I love Nikki Finke’s comment about Angelina Jolie. OMG, she is so beautiful…a goddess period. Also, it is so true that Anniston’s pr person is always trying to tell us that she is sexy, pretty…enough, Jennifer is cute and that’s it. I can’t believe that her pr team is trying to convience us that Jennifer is sexy, it’s just embarrassing…put jennifer’s face against Angelina…no comparision.

The writer at No. 10, Fred Mustard Stewart, died last February at 74. His obituary in The Guardian contained this snarky observation: “Year in, year out, the 600-page mark did not daunt him.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review, 24 Feb. 2008

Origin of SNARKY
dialect snark to annoy, perhaps alteration of nark to irritate
First Known Use: 1906.

When the late box office analyst A.D. Murphy taught at USC he famously referred to the group as The Hollywood Foreign Waiters Association. It sounds like you agree with his assessment from 30 years ago.

E! Are airing it in the uk and when Ricky started making his kim kardashian marriage joke they cut to a trailer of the new season of Kim and Chloe and didn’t resume the show until Johnny Depp was walking out. Guess they don’t want anyone laughing at their cash cow.

Seriously, what losers sit down and watch a bunch ego-inflated, pompus, over-paid liberal dimwits pat each other on the back for what, “play acting”? Imagine if they ever did a real days work, they’d have no cluse. They are the court jesters peoeple, come on.

Nikki, will you please be RUTHLESS about how terrible this is??! Please write an article about how NBC feels the need to punish not only its biggest audience of the year, but EVERYONE in the Globes audience as well, with this crap! They’re not letting Ricky say ANYTHING even remotely funny!!